A team of four senior investigators and their associates of the Minnesota Family Study Center of the University of Minnesota and of the University of New Hampshire propose a sixth year of a program of research on problem solving by family groups. The goal of this proposal is to realize the investments in data collected and analyzed but not fully exploited in theory building and implications for social policy and programs. This proposal includes a review of work completed to date, projections of progress by the end of the fifth year and rationales for a new year of funding. The sixth year will place a heavy emphasis on theory building through the efforts of a) a computer simulation of an experimental task, b) completion of initial data analyses of projects completed near the end of the present term of the grant, c) additional data analyses of otherwise completed projects to test theoretically relevant hypotheses, d) inventorying concepts, propositions, and partial theories contained in the in-house materials that will not be available at least until near the end of the present term of the grant, e) the integration of all theoretically relevant materials into a propositional theory utilizing a cybernetic systems model, and f) report and monograph writing.